Society and Culture – Slugger O'Toole

Desperate Measures

Dan McGinn on May 13, 2024, 10:31 pm | Readers 762

So let’s start with the good news. (SPOILER ALERT!!) After his beating in last week’s episode in a Belfast nightclub during a botched surveillance operation organised by Des Eastwood’s DS Murray Canning, Nathan Braniff’s Constable Tommy Foster was still alive. Katherine Devlin’s Constable Annie Conlon was on the warpath, though – pulling into the car park of Blackthorn Police Station as if she had just navigated Gambon Corner. As DS Canning and Frank Blake’s Constable Shane Bradley hunched over a …

Taking The Gloves Off

Dan McGinn on May 6, 2024, 10:10 pm | Readers 1178

The latest installment of ‘Blue Lights’ began with a tight close up of Seamus O’Hara’s Lee Thompson as he faced questions about the discovery of £30,000 in the boot of one of his taxis. Claiming it was the sum collected for charitable donations towards a new community centre in Mount Eden, he produced a statement corroborating his claim from its chairman, Dan Gordon’s veteran loyalist Rab McKendry. However Jonathan Harden and Joanne Crawford’s Inspectors Jonty Johnston and Helen McNally were …

Alliance : time to get off the fence ?

Brendan Heading on May 6, 2024, 4:16 pm | Readers 5203

Some weeks ago I noted with interest the outcome of the University of Liverpool survey into the makeup of the Alliance Party membership base and their views on constitutional matters, finding that a larger number of members believe that Irish unity should occur in the future. The title of this piece refers to an old cliché, which I’ve heard since 1994, that the party are a bunch of fence-sitters. More recently I’ve been hearing “constitutional change is coming and Alliance …

Sharp Eyes Save Lives

Dan McGinn on April 23, 2024, 12:56 am | Readers 1346

It was a bit of a subdued start to the latest episode of ‘Blue Lights’. (SPOILERS ALERT!!) Nathan Braniff’s PC Tommy Foster was on a date with Dearbhaile McKinney’s fellow police officer Aisling after persuading her in last week’s opening episode of Series Two to go out with him. With her based in Derry/Londonderry and him in Belfast, they chose the rather unglamorous venue of a bus serving breakfast in a car park at the Glenshane Pass to meet up. …

After Donaldson the question remains: how do we feed future generations of those who live in Northern Ireland?

Mick Fealty on April 5, 2024, 7:33 am | Readers 14774

aerial view of boat on water

As a Manchester City fan of many years standing (myself and just two others in Primary went blue when everyone else was going red) I know a rapid change in managers is not a sign of good health. After many years of stability at the top the DUP is experiencing that sort of bewilderment you get when nothing you try quite sticks. It’s been a rough ride since Peter Robinson stepped down. In spite of the drastic reasons for the …

Power of the People

Slugger Team on April 2, 2024, 7:00 am | Readers 3297

a view of the clouds from a plane

Lost amidst the hullaballoo of recent days was an article from Rory Carroll in the Guardian marking 20 years since Ireland, in a world-first, introduced a smoking ban in workplaces, pubs and restaurants. Journalists from all over the world descended onto the Republic to see this novel social experiment in action and to see whether it would stick. To the surprise of many, stick it did, and similar legislation has been adopted by multiple other countries in the years since. …

VIDEO: Ulster Workers’ Council Strike: 50 Years On #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 31, 2024, 8:30 am | Readers 3668

Freeze frame from video of Ulster Workers’ Council Strike: 50 Years On event in Crescent Arts Centre - Connal Parr is standing at the podium - seated near him are Dawn Purvis, Carmel Gates, Harry Donaghy, Jackie Redpath and Jackie McDonald.

Last Saturday, an Imagine! Belfast Festival event looked back at the Ulster Workers’ Council Strike: 50 Years On. A decade on from his 40th anniversary conference at Queen’s University – you can still listen back to my recordings on Slugger – Dr Connal Parr was joined on the Crescent Arts Centre stage by panellists Dawn Purvis, Carmel Gates, Harry Donaghy, Jackie Redpath and Jackie McDonald. The video of this year’s event can now be viewed. Filmed and edited by Alan …

Justice Colton and the Limitations of ‘Reconciliation’

Cillian McGrattan on March 12, 2024, 7:02 am | Readers 838

sunflower field under blue sky during sunset

Brian Walker recently commented on Mr Justice Colton’s intervention in the legacy debate – namely his judgment on 28 February in the High Court on a batch of cases seeking judicial review of the 2023 Legacy Act. Brian argued that that 200-page judgment ought to be understood with reference to ‘the basic purpose of the whole enterprise … the key word is “reconciliation”’. This is undoubtedly correct, but assessing peace and justice according to reconciliation is, I suggest, seriously tendentious …

Two very different leaders call for a dumping of old ways to bring a more inclusive Northern Ireland into being…

Mick Fealty on March 2, 2024, 2:54 pm | Readers 5007

maps lying on the floor

I don’t usually post at weekends, but the chatter about Jeffrey Donaldson’s interview on TalkBack in which he talked about “unionism shaping political change going forward”, combined with Micheál Martin’s remarks to the Alliance Party there is definitely something interesting afoot. The Donaldson piece is not a fade or tactical manoeuvre, although Kevin Meagher made a good point yesterday on Nolan when we were both on together, that Donaldson’s rhetoric repeated a note of reconciliation from Robinson in 2011 (and …

“a striking manifestation of the confidence and optimism of the shared island initiative…”

Mick Fealty on February 20, 2024, 11:35 pm | Readers 5775

bridge, autumn, nature

As recently as November Irish News columnist Brian Feeney wrote a column under the heading to the effect that “The Irish government and Fianna Fáil have no policy at all on the north”. [Ahem – Ed] Well, the secret of politics is in the timing. In a year that will see elections on both island’s Micheál Martin’s brainchild the Shared Island Initiative has finally made people sit up and take notice. The initiative was launched in 202o and by the …

After the Stormont restart an opportunity exists for the SDLP but is far from guaranteed

Mick Fealty on February 13, 2024, 12:31 pm | Readers 4188

trees on forest with sun rays

The SDLP is suffering a long term voter drought with just one way left to turn things around: ie, to make a genuine success of Opposition. For it to work they need to look and sound like an alternative leadership, not another protest group. Above all, they need to be heard.

After a big day for Irish nationalism it’s time to make the institutions they now lead actually work

Mick Fealty on February 6, 2024, 11:35 am | Readers 4232

a couple of tools that are sitting on a table

Saturday was a big day for Nationalism, and few summed it up as well as the new Nationalist leader of the opposition, Matthew O’Toole: As we walked down the stairs into the Great Hall, we passed the figure of James Craig, Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister — the man who built this Building and this state in his image. Whatever one’s view of him, Craig was a far-sighted strategist, but even he was unlikely to have foreseen today’s events. The …

As Sir Jeffrey emerges with an unexpected answer to Northern Ireland’s dilemmas, so must others…

Mick Fealty on February 1, 2024, 2:09 pm | Readers 10551

grayscale photo of duck on water

Brian has it in one. There are no excuses, now the DUP’s great misadventure with an aspirational Brexit they (nor any of their loyalist critics) would never be able to shape or control is at an end. Their eyes were bigger than their belly, which allowed them to be distracted from their main purpose as an NI Unionist party, which as Jeffrey Donaldson has noted, is to make Northern Ireland work. I appreciate Frank’s concern about some of the wording …

Our tired and failing democracy needs a new set of eyes

Mick Fealty on January 31, 2024, 1:07 pm | Readers 3625

close-up photography of girl

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for she was born in another time.” — Rabindranath Tagore Good to see the Belfast Summit launched (Carlos Moreno is internationally influential and is a bit of a coup for them) just after the news of the likely restoration of Stormont. I hope we do get back to work. On Good Morning Scotland (36.19) this morning I provided context for this breakdown and then agreement to anyone listening at such an early …

The Belfast Summit takes place on the 15th February 2024…

Brian O'Neill on January 31, 2024, 8:33 am | Readers 1514

An event next month at Ulster University will put Belfast City Centre – good, bad and open to improvement – under the spotlight. The main draw to the Belfast Summit, organised by communications, public affairs and research specialists MW Advocate, is Professor Carlos Moreno – the creator of the 15-minute city concept and the man who is the driving force behind Paris’s regeneration plan. Organisers are hoping to stimulate and facilitate a conversation to examine how Belfast can become one of Europe’s leading small …

On the face of it Donaldson’s deal will keep the whole UK aligned with the EU

Mick Fealty on January 30, 2024, 7:46 am | Readers 6401

Rather than farce, the DUP executive’s decision last night is a crossing of the rubicon. Sir Jeffrey’s problem in selling it is likely to relate to the expectations of other unionist voices and leaders. The BBC reports his take as follows: Sir Jeffrey said the legislation agreed with Westminster would “remove checks on goods moving within the UK and remaining in NI, and end NI blindly following EU laws”. He added: “There will be legislation protecting the Acts of Union, …

NI 21 is long gone but maybe it wasn’t the worst of ideas.

Terry Wright on January 29, 2024, 1:59 pm | Readers 3458

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy on the new; not on fighting the old but ib building the new” – SOCRATES It was quiet in the leader’s office as we awaited the arrival of the party officers. Just the Director of Communications and me. “What we need is a swap Unionist day.” I explained: “If everyone in the UUP who could fit into the DUP and those in the DUP who could fit into the …

The DUP’s actual problem is everybody’s actual problem?

Mick Fealty on January 19, 2024, 3:27 pm | Readers 4960

To answer my own rhetorical question, it is simply because they cannot bear to be in government (because it loses them votes, rather than grows them). For most of their fifty plus years they were oppositionist. The elder Paisley he made a good fist of at least looking like they enjoyed the trappings of power. But according to insiders at the time, although the atmosphere was good, nothing was getting done. Back in 2008, I gave a presentation in NICVA …

The Hope of Possibility

Sarah Creighton on January 17, 2024, 6:31 pm | Readers 3498

My Dad died two days before Christmas. I was on my way up to see him when I got a missed call and a text from my brother telling me he’d passed away. He had pancreatic cancer. The time between diagnosis and death is often short. Before you’ve had time to wrap your head around the fact that your loved one is ill, they are gone. The shock of the loss is as sharp and painful as the grief. How …

[Long Read] Next Irish Election will test whether what a government does makes a difference

Mick Fealty on January 12, 2024, 9:19 am | Readers 3804

In 2024 four billion people go to the polls: about half the population of the planet. In the US, poll watchers predict a Trump win in a campaign where he may spend more time in court than on the stump. In the early 1930s, Will Rogers, a lifelong Democrat joked that the reason Republicans nearly always won the Whitehouse back then was that they had a habit of having three bad years followed by one good one. The good year …